Link building is a smart way to boost organic traffic to your website. Not only will your search engine ranking improve, but your sales will also increase. Despite what some may tell you, there is no magic formula for market success. You have to mix it up. There are several tactics you can utilize to drive organic traffic to your website.

With so much written about increasing organic traffic, it is hard to separate what will and won’t work for you. This blog post focuses on three proven strategies that drive organic traffic to your website with some case studies as well.

Sounds good? Let’s jump right in.

Guest Posting

Definition

Frequent blogging is one of the most effective tactics to drive organic traffic to your website. However, you shouldn’t just focus on the content on your blog, you should try to get your name on other websites as well. This strategy is called guest posting.

Guest posting is when you write custom content for other blogs and then link back to yours on the content. This lets Google know that you’re an influential website, leading to your content ranking better.

Guest blogging as a link building strategy is very effective, but only when used correctly. When you clearly understand the audience you’re writing for, it is easy to generate the content that will earn you links from the said audience.

Pros

1. Building a reputation. When you guest post on a reputable site, you are creating a reputation as an expert in your field. Readers will be eager to learn more from you.
2. Building links. Building links to your website is one of the biggest advantages of guest posting.
3. Increased visitor traffic. Hosting a guest post from a distinguished blogger opens up a door to that blogger’s audience.
4. Adds value to the target site. Guest posting allows you to bring in fresh and original ideas and add value to the target site directly.
5. Expands your network. Guest posting is an essential tool for gaining more contacts. You get to work with people who will come in handy for future collaborations.

Cons

1. Time-consuming. It could take months before you see results. You need to regularly guest post to see results quicker.
2. Penalization for keyword filling. Not properly vetting guest bloggers could lead to low-quality content, which could harm your organic rank. This is not to mention the damage to your reputation among your followers.
3. Targeting the wrong audience. When searching for guest posting opportunities, you should only focus on websites and blogs that cater to your target audience. You might create a high-quality article that is not interesting to the site’s readership, rendering your efforts futile.

Case Study

Our first case study is a popular app Buffer.

When it was launched, the co-founder, Leo Widrich, catapulted the customer base for Buffer from nil to 100,000 customers within nine months. During this period, he wrote an estimated 150 guest posts, starting his journey posting on smaller blogs, before transitioning to more influential websites.

Despite focusing more on signups for Buffer, organic traffic also grew immensely thanks to the inbound links acquired thanks to Leo’s guest blogging efforts.

HARO

Definition

So, after searching for effective link-building strategies in forums online, you have been stumbling across mentions of HARO, but you don’t exactly understand what it entails.

Well, it’s pretty simple.

HARO stands for Help A Reporter Out. It is a social media company that connects industry experts (such as you) to journalists.

How does it work?

Reporters and bloggers looking for sources to share their expertise on a topic send in a request called a query in HARO lingo. If you come across a query that allows you to promote your products and expertise, send a concise email response following the query’s requirements.

Should you get a media placement through HARO, you may earn high-quality backlinks from influential websites such as Huffington Post, American Express, Reader’s Digest, and CNN. The continual use of HARO can help you build your website’s authority significantly.

Pros

1. Opens a door for exposure on highly reputable sites. This boosts your SEO and site authority.
2. Helps you establish credibility in your areas of expertise. Being quoted in an authoritative website such as Business Insider allows you to command respect from the readers as an expert in the topic.
3. HARO is free. Yes, you can get started with HARO without paying a single penny. HARO, however, does have a couple of paid packages if you need some extra features.
4. Relationship building. HARO fosters relationships between your brand and reporters/media outlets.
5. User-friendly. HARO has a very simple layout and is very easy to execute.
6. Natural backlinks. Since links are obtained by responding to queries as an industry professional.

Cons

1. Vague queries. Some queries are obscure and difficult to answer.
2. Not all journalists follow up. Many reporters don’t take the time to let you know that your quote was used.
3. Some outlets are marked as anonymous. This is disappointing when using HARO for link building, as that is essential information.
4. Limited free trial. The free trial of HARO only has minimal features.
5. Pricing. The cost of the paid packages is not very reasonable.
6. Tight deadlines. You will need to respond within the same day to stand a chance at getting a backlink.

Case Study

Just like all other link building strategies, perseverance is essential when giving HARO a try. Maybe you will be the next Lucie B Lindner, a national jump rope champion who got a full-page article feature on SHAPE magazine because of HARO.

In case that doesn’t convince you about the power of HARO, maybe the story of MarTechExec will. Using HARO for opinions and contributions from experts regarding an article, MarTechExec posted the article, resulting in more than 100,000 page views in a fortnight. Some universities even reached out with the intent of converting the article into source material.

Skyscraper

Definition

Backlinks are one of Google’s most important ranking factors. However, Google’s Webmaster Guidelines state that links shouldn’t be unnatural or manipulative. They should be earned and editorially placed.

So, what does all this have to do with the Skyscraper Technique? Everything.

Coined by Brian Dean, the Skyscraper technique is a simple way to create engaging content that will garner many high-quality editorial links.

This strategy entails:

• Finding relevant content with lots of backlinks and room for improvement, such as this pillar piece on the Google Shopping Feed.
• Creating better content based on the same topic, then publishing it on your website.
• Promoting your content.

This tactic’s effectiveness relies on the fact that it is human nature to be attracted to the best. Therefore, it is used more for link attraction than lead generation. The reason why it works so well is that it ticks all ranking factors:

• Content
• RankBrain
• Links

This strategy aims to catapult your content to the top of the SERP, leading to increased traffic to your site.

If you want to take your pillar post to the next level, you may even want to create other assets such as infographics, youtube videos, or self-recorded videos to differentiate yourself from the competitors. This is especially useful if you are covering a more technical topic where it is easier to explain via video vs via words.

In addition, if you want to be thorough in your research, you should also consider using dedicated SEO tools so that you can find out which of your competitors have the most backlinks and which websites are linking to them.

Pros

1. Increase overall backlinks. Many websites will link to you because of your quality.
2. Build strong relationships with fellow bloggers.
3. Increase comments on your blog.
4. Improves brand exposure.
5. Increase the overall organic traffic from search engines as you will rank higher on SERPs.

Cons

1. Your post must be high quality. Your article has to be more appealing than your competitor’s post.
2. You may get caught up in trying to make a masterpiece better. Nobody can improve upon the Mona Lisa.
3. It can be tedious. Apart from writing an impeccable article, you have to reach out to website owners asking them to swap out existing links with yours.
4. It might be a while before you start seeing results. The Skyscraper does not result in overnight rankings.

Case Study

The world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, attracts two million visitors annually. The Skyscraper technique is finding the tallest “skyscraper” in your area of expertise, then adding a couple of stories on the top.

Fortune 500 marketing budgets aside, you can shoot to the top of Google’s SERP without spending even a single coin. This article by Brian Dean had its backlinks shoot up due to utilizing the Skyscraper technique. Not only that, organic traffic to his entire site doubled just two weeks after posting the article.

Conclusion

When it comes to link building, your real challenge is not getting links, but rather obtaining high quality, natural, and trusted links. Quality, rather than quantity is what matters. With that in mind, I hope you can see the potential of these three foolproof link building strategies.

In this article, I have only included free strategies or those that require minimal resources to get started with. These methods take time, so if you may want a quicker start consider buying paid traffic from platforms such as Google, Facebook, Instagram, and Quora.

Paid traffic is fantastic if you are looking to start an ecommerce store and can provide you with much faster results. However, you will have to actively monitor ad spend to ensure that the revenue covers the cost.

If you want to be the tortoise that eventually wins the race then invest in your links – they will pay dividends in the future.

Any questions? Let me know in the comments down below.